Walking Alone
by greenleaf-in-bloom
Summary: OotP spoilers! This is mostly a Remus fic, talking about the summers before and after Harry's fifth year...debuts by Harry, most of the Order, the Weasleys...


Walking Alone  
  
Walking was what Remus Lupin would do to ease his nerves when he was worried, when he was tense, when he was in pain. This meant that he was walking very often, more than once a day. He would walk barefoot or in unpolished shoes or sometimes in stocking feet. Some people preferred to sit in an armchair, perhaps in front of a warm fire on a dark night, listening to the crickets chirp and the fire crackle. Some people would lie on their beds and read, or listen to music. For Remus, the only thing to do was walk, and it was an impulsive thing. One moment he'd be staring at the Daily Prophet or the local Muggle news, sipping bitter coffee and wishing he had the money or time to go to town for sugar. The next he would be striding out his front door, across an unkept lawn, and down the smooth concrete road through the woods. Less often, he might run across the fields, running away from whatever change had suddenly come across the world, whatever thought might have raced through his brain.  
  
He would walk in rain or snow or hail, in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, the night. He would wake up in the wee hours of the morning, pull on a robe, and walk. He would walk in a new moon, in a crescent, or when the moon was so close to full that no one except a werewolf could tell the difference.  
  
On a full moon, he would run.  
  
But Remus would walk along the paths he had made through the woods, or sometimes on impulse he would drive his car into the Muggle countryside and walk there and muse. He would never bring his wand because he would never need it.  
  
He would meet animals sometimes, and they might come close or they might run upon recognizing the scent of a human, or an almost-human. A not-quite- human. Stray cats sometimes, deer, wild pheasants who would sometimes make him feel hungry and sick. The neighbors, all of whom were more than ten miles away, had dogs, and if he walked for a very long time, as he could be wont to do, he might meet them - the rottweiler and the cocker spaniel who always fought, the American bichon, that Newfoundland.  
  
One night in the very early summer, about a year after he had left Howarts, long past midnight, when Remus was on his way home from a walk, he heard a bark, distant and almost howling.  
  
It took him almost two minutes to remember that he was nine miles from the nearest neighbor.  
  
Remus had turned, far too quickly, almost losing his balance - it was only two days after the full moon. He had seen a shape hurtling down his long driveway, toward where he was. A black shape, which barked again, in a tone that Remus recognized instantly as joy.  
  
He had felt his knees go weak, but he hadn't felt the concrete under them a few seconds later. All he'd been able to feel was a dog tongue licking his face enthusiastically, and he had laughed weakly with shocked surprise and a swelling balloon of happiness.  
  
It had been then that he realized that there was a long gash down the dog's shoulder, and his laughter had halted abruptly. The black dog, obviously confused, sat back, panting, head tilted to the side, dog grinning.  
  
Then he had changed back into Sirius Black, sitting in front of Remus on the concrete, head tilted to the side, smile a lopsided Padfoot smile, sitting awkwardly with his legs half-drawn up to his chin.  
  
Remus had smiled still - no matter what had happened, it had ended with Sirius sitting in front of him, and this couldn't be all a bad thing - and Padfoot had given him a careful, one-armed embrace which was returned the same way.  
  
"It's late," Sirius said at last, still smiling as if nothing was wrong. The gash was hidden under his robes, and it wasn't visible now. "What are you doing out here at this time?"  
  
"Walking," Remus replied, simply but a bit sheepishly.  
  
Sirius' grin faded a bit. "You worried?"  
  
Remus was taken aback slightly. Did Sirius actually remember, after everything, the odd habit that his friend had picked up at the end of their seventh year? Did he actually remember so trivial a thing after all these years?  
  
Apparently. Remus looked down and nodded.  
  
Sirius' already-weakening grin vanished as if it had never been. His face was grim and shadowed, and he seemed quite a bit older in his eyes now somehow. They were less haunted than they had been, much less, but there was a trace of weariness now that lingered in them. Sirius stood and offered a hand - his left, Remus noted decidedly, not his dominant right.  
  
"Come on," he said as he helped Remus to his feet. "We've got to talk."  
  
"How's Harry?" Remus asked instantly. "I read that he won the Triwizard. I wish I could have been in contact more."  
  
Sirius winced noticably, and Remus did not think it was from his side. "I'll have to start from the beginning."  
  
Remus looked around. "We have plenty of time, it seems. Well, let's start a bit more recently. What happened to your shoulder?"  
  
Sirius started and then smacked his forehead with his hand - his left hand. "Of course," he sighed. "You saw it when I was in my Animagus form. Had me startled there for a moment."  
  
"You were just going to pretend it hadn't happened or something?"  
  
Sirius glared. "I hate it when you're worried," he muttered. "All right, all right. I was on the run, you know, I'd been caught stealing from a market. In Padfoot form, of course. Just yesterday. And I had to get underneath a barbed-wire fence, and well, I got under it, but not without damage to my heavenly person."  
  
Remus sighed and nodded - it was a very Sirius-like thing to do. The house came into view. Sirius made two cups of coffee very adeptly, seeing as he probably hadn't in thirteen years or so. He took a careful sip, taking a sharp breath - the first hot beverage, Remus suspected, for thirteen years. Then he set down the cup and began to speak. __ Remus walked in the morning through the woods, this time with a black dog trotting sleepily beside him. He spoke to it, slow words in a soft voice that sometimes faltered. It would be the only time he would walk with company.  
  
That morning, as it happened, he returned to find a note pinned to his door. As it turned out he had missed his Muggle landlord by a matter of minutes.  
  
Sirius transformed and read the note, then turned to look at Remus with near-disbelief. His friend was sitting with his face in a shaking hand against the outside wall.  
  
"What does this mean?" Sirius whispered, shaking his head.  
  
"It means he's sick of me not being able to pay rent," Remus had said softly. "I don't have a job, Sirius. Muggle world, my condition makes it suspicious. Magic world, they've got all this crap about me being a werewolf."  
  
"But you were still able to find a job - what about the one you had before Hogwarts? What happened?"  
  
"Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, happened," Remus said shortly, and wouldn't elaborate. 


End file.
